EDITOR'S PREFACE 



NEARLT thirty years have passed 

 since this book was published. At 

 its first appearance it was fully 

 appreciated by a few persons^ among 

 whom Mr. Bright, the author of a "A Tear 

 in a Lancashire Garden" may be specially 

 mentioned ; but it has long been out of print 

 and is now very scarce^ so that the time for 

 a second edition seems to have fully come. 



For it is not a book that should be buried 

 or forgotten. In many respects it stands quite 

 alone among the numberless books on gardening 

 and flowers, for it takes a special line of its 

 own, in which it really remains supreme ; 

 a few authors have touched upon the same 

 line, but only in a slight sketchy way as a 

 small part of the larger subjects on which 

 they were writing, and a few have attempted 

 some feeble imitations of the book and have 

 failed signally. 



IX 



